NBA season in dire jeopardy after players reject deal

NBA commissioner David Stern said the 2011-12 season is “in jeopardy” after collective bargaining ended Monday in the labor dispute between the league’s owners and players.

Next up: An anti-trust lawsuit by the players against the NBA and club owners.

Disbanding the National Basketball Players Association by announcing it is filing a disclaimer of interest with the National Labor Relations Board, the players on Monday rejected a proposal from the NBA it asserted had asked for too many givebacks.

The league’s “last, best” proposal, made at a Thursday negotiating session in New York, represented a giveback of roughly $280 million in salaries in its first season of implementation and contained changes to the system for determining team salaries the union said it could not condone.

“We’ve negotiated in good faith for over two years,” union executive director Billy Hunter said in an interview aired live by NBA-TV. “The players just felt that they’ve given enough.”

The union’s action brought a swift, vitriolic response from Stern, who chose league broadcast partner ESPN to deliver his remarks.

“What they’ve done is destroyed incredible value that would have gone to the union membership,” Stern said. “We were very close and they decided to blow it up.”

Stern also released an official statement, through NBA.com:

“At a bargaining session in February 2010, Jeffrey Kessler, counsel for the union, threatened that the players would abandon the collective bargaining process and start an antitrust lawsuit against our teams if they did not get a bargaining resolution that was acceptable to them.

“In anticipation of this day, the NBA filed an unfair labor practice charge before the National Labor Relations Board asserting that, by virtue of its continued threats, the union was not bargaining in good faith. We also began a litigation in federal court in anticipation of this same bargaining tactic.

“The NBA has negotiated in good faith throughout the collective bargaining process, but — because our revised bargaining proposal was not to its liking — the union has decided to make good on Mr. Kessler’s threat.

“There will ultimately be a new collective bargaining agreement, but the 2011-12 season is now in jeopardy.”

The deal the players rejected Monday included a 50-50 split of revenues — they received 57 percent in the last collective bargaining agreement — and numerous system and spending restrictions. A threat of decertification by a large number of players was a backdrop to Monday’s meeting and likely played into the union’s decision to disclaim interest, effectively disbanding and becoming a trade association.

Hunter announced the union had retained noted litigator David Boies and that an anti-trust suit would be filed “in a couple of days.”